Paul Brown: Coco Chanel is credited with popularising the suntan. As a result of a bare-armed holiday on the Mediterranean in the 1920s her bronzed look became a sign of health and vitality. Thereafter the leisured, wealthy and successful exposed themselves to the sun, reversing the Victorian prejudice that brown skin was the mark of a weather beaten peasant. Nearly a century later we are torn between the scientific knowledge that sunlight is good for encouraging our bodies to create beneficial vitamin D to avoid rickets and fear of skin cancer.